Road Widths

[CVSNE]

Someone on the one of the Facebook groups I follow asked a question about road widths as I was playing with some road arrangements last night on the layout. So I responded "real time" by taking a couple of photos and posting them. Thought they might be of interest here.


I lay out the shape of the road using some half strips of cork roadbed since it bends easily and I happened to have it on hand. This shows the road (between the inner edges of the cork) at 22 scale feet. It's not bad - but might make for some hair-raising episodes, especially on a moonless night! and it's going to start looking really narrow, really quickly if you were to include shoulders, drainage etc.. on the sides of the road within this 22 foot footprint.

The second photo shows the road at 26 feet - for the sake of 3/8" or so of additional width I think it looks much better and is what I would consider minimum for a two-lane country road (again with some shoulders, drainage etc...



Some thoughts on road width before I step off the soapbox -


1. You can de-emphasize how narrow roads are by avoiding placing vehicles next to one another in the traffic lanes (in other words, don't pose your vehicles like I did for these photos!) 

2. City streets, especially in older towns in the eastern U.S., are often narrower than country roads - but don't make them too narrow. Most Main Streets in small towns are upwards of 60 feet in width. That allows cars parked at an angle to the curb, two or three travel lanes, and more cars parked at an angle on the opposite curb. I've never seen this on a model railroad, but it might be a neat use of space, and would give me an opportunity to show off all my Raymo vehicles, once he sends me one... <g>!

3. Casual visitors - and even other model railroaders - may not know a thing about locomotives, freight cars, operations, and the like but I guarantee they will recognize a too narrow street when they see it!

Marty

[ReadingBob]

Great information/examples/thoughts Marty!

[jbvb]

In present-day NH, paved roads in our small, rural town are about 20 feet wide.  When two big vehicles meet, both have to slow down.  But per state law, the right of way is 20 feet on either side of the centerline, so there's room for embankments, drainage etc.  In some cases (like my older barn), parts of the structure are now within the RoW, usually because generations of Road Agents fed the need for more pavement by digging into the high side rather than bringing in fill for the low side.  And generations of landowners have made angry speeches (or written angry letters, or hired ferocious lawyers) to push back against the encroachment.